Thursday, October 12, 2006

Kim Roberts was the sex worker partner of the alleged gang rape victim, Crystal Gail Mangum. She is a key witness in the Duke lacrosse case because she said she was with Ms. Mangum for most of the night of the Duke lacrosse party, except for "less than 5 minutes." Ms. Roberts also said Ms. Mangum's claims of being raped were a "crock" the first time she heard the gang rape allegations.

The latest version of her Ms. Roberts' description of events at the Duke lacrosse party on March 13 & 14th, given to Ed Bradley of CBS News, 60 Minutes, directly contradicts statements made by Crystal Gail Mangum.

Ms. Roberts, also known as Kim Pittman, is a convicted felon. She was convicted in 2001 for embezzling $25,000 from a photo finishing company where she worked as a payroll specialist. Roberts, 32, was arrested on March 22 - eight days after the party - on a probation violation stemming from the 2001 conviction. Ms. Roberts had failed to pay restitution to her former employer, missed appointments with her probation officer and left North Carolina without permission to visit California.

"Although I am no celebrity and just an average citizen, I've found myself in the center of one of the biggest stories in the country," Roberts said in an email to 5W Public Relations. "I'm worried about letting this opportunity pass me by without making the best of it and was wondering if you had any advice as to how to spin this to my advantage."

Roberts was sentenced to 120 days of house arrest on September 25th for her probation violation. Roberts will begin the house arrest on Oct. 9 and may only travel to her place of employment. The period of her house arrest will be cut to 60 days if she catches up on her back restitution payments. Ms. Roberts probation will run through December 2009.

CALLER: "Hi, I don't know if this is an emergency or not, necessarily, but I'm in Durham, and I was driving down near Duke's campus, and it's me and my black girlfriend, and the guy -- there's like a white guy by the Duke wall -- and he just hollered out 'n-----' to me. And I'm just so angry I didn't know who to call. [Crying]

Seconds into the call, Ms. Roberts said she wasn't driving anymore she was walking.

CALLER: "It's right outside of 610 Buchanan [Blvd]. And I saw them all come out of, like, a big frat house, and me and my black girlfriend are walking by, and they called us 'n------.' [Sobbing]

..."And they didn't harm me in any way, but I just feel so completely offended, I can't even believe it. I thought, you know what I'm saying, times have changed, and I don't even know what's going on."

A female walked across the parking lot to my location and said that it was her car. She told me that she had made the call at 610 N. Buchanan. She stated that she was driving up the street and that the female she had in the car was walking up the sidewalk along the Duke Wall in the 600 block of N. Buchanan. She said that a group of white males was at 610 and they were yelling racial slurs across the street at the female. She said that she did not know if the female was drunk or high, but that in any case, she did not appear that she could take care of herself and she was afraid of what the white males might do to the women. She said that she offered the women a ride to a safe location; but that the women would not get out of her car. She further stated that she did not know the women. I cautioned her about picking up strangers.

SHE STATED THAT SHE HEARD THAT MS. MANGUM WAS SEXUALLY ASSAULTED, WHICH SHE STATED WAS A "CROCK" AND SHE STATED THAT SHE WAS WITH HER THE WHOLE TIME UNTIL SHE LEFT. AND THE ONLY TIME SHE WAS ALONE WAS WHEN SHE WOULD NOT LEAVE AND THAT TIME PERIOD WAS LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES.

She [Ms. Mangum] then told me that we should go back to the house because there was more money to be made there. I asked her again where her things were and she said "Here," "It's here." But I did not see her things so in my opinion, she was talking crazy. I made an attempt to get her things. I took my belongings, locked her in my car and went back up to the house to try and retrieve her bag. I looked around with Dan and we didn't see anything so I said I've done all I could and went back to my car...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that if charges are filed, it won‘t be - I hate to use a legal word, but erroneous. It won‘t be an erroneous charge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSBY: Both of you, if you could, hang on because I want to now play this is part of my exclusive interview with the second dancer. She was with the accuser the night of the alleged rape. Let‘s take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was talkative and friendly and smiling, and definitely--we talked for several minutes, you know, normal conversation. We were getting to know each other. She was fine. She was absolutely fine.

COSBY: Did she seem that she had been on drugs or drinking?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not at all. She did not seem like that at all.

COSBY: Are you surprised that they're saying that, Look, maybe she arrived, you know, banged up and bruised?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I mean, like I said, I just didn't notice anything. There was nothing overtly banged up or bruised about her, or I would have noticed it.

COSBY: How much of a contrast was her behavior from when she arrived to when she left?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was very different. She was different from the person that I met in the beginning of the night.

KIM ROBERTS, EXOTIC DANCER: I never saw a rape occur. Everybody knows, I think -- it's hard for me to remember -- who knows what, you know, because the facts are so simple to me, so elementary, so simple. The timeline -- all that stuff that is so confusing to everybody, I was there from the beginning to the end.

The only thing I did not see was the rape because I was not in the bathroom at that particular moment. Everything leading up to the it I was there, everything leaving from it I was there. And mind you, I believe I was the only sober person in the place.

I even hesitate to say that I didn't believe a rape occurred, you know? One of the reasons why I hesitated to say that is because I didn't want to make any -- you know, make anybody else biased. I didn't want to, you know, hurt the integrity of the case. I probably am going to say that too many times, but I did not want people to make any judgments based upon my judgment, you know?

According to Roberts, who was interviewed last week by NEWSWEEK, the boys gave each of them mixed drinks. Roberts says she did not drink hers, but the other dancer did, knocking her cup over after finishing half her drink, then imbibing Roberts's.

Roberts said that she thought the other woman arrived sober. But when the two began their strip show around midnight, the other woman began having trouble. "She started stumbling," recalled Roberts. "When I think back on it, she had a glassy look in her eyes." Roberts says she "gave her a look that said, 'C'mon, girl, what's going on?' "--but got no response.

Roberts told Vanity Fair contributing editor Buzz Bissinger she was originally told she would be performing at a bachelor party, where she assumed the men would be close to 30 or a little older. But when she arrived she realized the crowd was all younger men, some so drunk they were urinating off the porch of the house.

When they learned that the second dancer coming was black, some objected because they wanted a white dancer, she said. But the two dancers nonetheless danced for about eight minutes until a young man waved a broomstick in the air and made crude comments.

She said she felt overwhelmed and intimidated. "You have to think of two little girls among how many big boys? That in and of itself is intimidating. ...

"How is someone supposed to perform a show if they're wondering .... 'Am I going to have to worry about my safety?' Things were said that made me concerned for my safety."

ROBERTS: No. By myself, you know, I had to look out for myself and I couldn't really... no. I'm not going to talk about this too much, but I was outside we were separated for a point when I was outside.

WILLIAMS: Roberts says the other dancer soon joined her in the car. Some men came out to demand a refund because the women had danced for fewer than five minutes. She says the men also made racist comments. Roberts says the other dancer got out of the car and went back inside to get a purse. Roberts nervously waited in the car, chain smoking. She's unsure how much time passed. Roberts went back into the house to look for the other woman, but didn't see her. It's during this time that the rape allegedly occurred. When she returned to the car, someone yelled that the other dancer was passed out on the porch. Roberts asked the men to help woman get to the car.

ROBERTS: She's taking steps on her own, but her head is down and she gets into the car slumped over that same way. Slumped is a good..good word to use.

The dancing partner of the woman who accuses three Duke Lacrosse players of raping her refutes a key part of her partner’s account of the alleged crime...

Roberts' answer to Bradley’s question directly contradicts a crucial statement the accuser gave to police. Bradley asks whether she, Roberts, who goes by the stage name "Nikki" when she performs, was holding onto the accuser at the beginning of the alleged crime.

Says Bradley, "In the police statement, [accuser] describes the rape in this way: 'Three guys grabbed Nikki,' 'That's you,'" says Bradley, "'Brett, Adam and Matt grabbed me. They separated us at the master bedroom door while we tried to hold on to each other. Bret, Adam and Matt took me into the bathroom.' Were you holding on to each other? Were you pulled apart?"

"Nope," replies Roberts, who says she was hearing this account for the first time.

Roberts also denies the accuser's statement to the police that after the alleged rape, Roberts came into the bathroom and helped one of the rapists dress her.

When pressed by Bradley about whether she saw signs of rape from the accuser, such as complaining about pain or a mention of an assault, Roberts says, "She obviously wasn't hurt...because she was fine."

Roberts and Ed Bradley

CBS News continues to refer to Ms. Mangum and Ms. Roberts as "dancers?"

Dan Abrams of MSNBC, who has seen photos of the two women performing, said: "My subjective opinion of looking at these pictures is they are two buck-naked women performing sexual acts on one another in front of a lot of different people."

Kim Roberts, the second stripper in the Duke University rape case, told "60 Minutes" that the accuser is lying about being sexually assault during the off-campus party in March, ESPN reported Thursday.

correction:Mike McCusker at Crystal Mess pointed out that the list missed an April 22nd CNN video clip, related to the A.P. interview, of Ms. Roberts giving yet another version of the events. That transcript has been inserted as version 3.5. One more good reason to use decimal points with version numbers.

The inital list also did not include a Newsweek interview that Roberts did in late April and her first interview done anonymously with Rita Crosby on April 18th. The Newsweek interview has been inserted as version 3.7 and the Rita Crosby interview as version 2.5.